Page 58 of Offensive Edge
It took longer to realize he was asleep outside. The moment he started moving, Theo’s arms came up around him to steady him. He opened his eyes to find that he was sleeping on Theo’s chest, in Vic’s backyard, on one of the outdoor couches. Somehow, they ended up with a blanket over them. He didn’t know what time it was, but the sun was coming up, and there were people still awake around them.
“Why didn’t we sleep in one of our two beds that are literally right here? And warm?” Rowan asked, bringing a hand up to cover his face from the sunrise and the gaze of their teammates.
“You didn’t want to miss a single second,” Theo said, his hand smoothing over the back of Rowan’s head as he shivered.
“Fuck.” He remembered that. He was getting flashes from last night. Vic invited the whole team over to their place. Someone had wrangled a lot of food and a lot of alcohol. Some of their neighbors came over for a bit to touch the Cup. When Rowan finally blinked open his eyes, Vic was sitting on one of the other plush patio chairs with the Cup settled between his knees, a joint in his hand.
Rowan could go for some of that, too.
“Hey, lovers,” Vic said when Rowan finally woke. The night before was a bit of a blur, but he did have a fuzzy memory of enthusiastically declaring his love for Theo, and planting one on him, square on his lips.
That’s one way to come out.
“How are you still awake, man?” Theo asked him. Rowan yawned again and sat up, and Theo followed suit, arranging Rowan under his arm and pulling the blanket back over them.
Vic shook his head. “I don’t fucking know. I feel like if I don’t go to sleep, this will keep being real. Who knows what’s going to happen if I fall asleep?”
“It’s real,” Theo said, his arm around Rowan’s shoulder, pulling him even closer.
“So when the fuck did this happen?” Vic asked, settling back in his chair, chill as anything. “If I recall, when you showed up here, Foley, Laney here was trying to murder you with his eye lasers.”
Rowan bit his lip.
“I guess it happened in junior,” Theo said.
“And then you obviously catastrophically broke up.”
“Something like that,” Rowan said, tucking his face against Theo’s chest. He was still so fucking ashamed of the way he had acted when they were eighteen.
“So you’re telling me I made you live with your ex-boyfriend, and you said nothing?”
“I think he said a lot, actually,” Rowan said. Theo’s chest shook with a laugh.
“Okay, true,” Vic agreed. “God, I thought you two were just buddies again. The lack of physical boundaries in this sport, I swear.”
Theo laughed. “I guess we started to figure our shit out when Ro got sick.”
“And Theo got concussed.”
“A whole lot more of the fucking season makes sense now,” Vic said. He let out a breath. “I’m going to go check on Jules. She’s sleeping in my room. Can I leave you with this?”
He lifted the Cup up by the bowl, and waddled it the three feet over to Theo and Rowan.
“I’ll take the rest of that too,” Rowan said, making grabby fingers at Vic’s joint.
“Alright, be responsible,” Vic said, taking one more hit before he headed inside.
There wasn’t much left, but they each got a couple hits. Rowan tucked his face against Theo’s chest again, and now that he was a little more awake and settled, he realized how fucking rank he was. They probably both were.
“We need showers, holy fuck.”
“Later,” Theo said, his free hand tracing the upper rim of the Cup. “Gotta bask in this a little.”
“Did you ever think in your wildest dreams we would win this?”
Theo paused, his free hand leaving the Cup to tip Rowan’s face up to his, his fingers firm on his chin. He kissed Rowan with morning breath ranker than his beer-soaked t-shirt.
“I knew as soon as you signed.”
